


Rimininny!

by kathryne



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Bibliophilia, F/F, authorial intent, bookporn, reading's a sexual preference, the erotics of close reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathryne/pseuds/kathryne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rimininny!

**Author's Note:**

> This came about when Sophie Grace linked me to [Hysterical Literature](http://claytoncubitt.tumblr.com/tagged/hystericalliterature) (NSFW) and said, "I am fairly certain that this is a game that Helena and Myka play." Yep. And then she beta'd, because she's cool like that.
> 
> No spoilers; set handwavily somewhere before 2.11, "Buried."

There had been no pings, no artifact-related disasters, and no unexpected visits from Mrs Frederic for days. Artie was worried and Pete was going a little stir-crazy, but Myka was determined to enjoy the calm before the inevitable storm. Tonight was for a glass of wine and an _entire_ book; the latter was a luxury she rarely managed in the chaos of the Warehouse. She curled up on her bed and cracked the cover of one of her comfort reads.

She didn't notice the door open, but the click as it shut drew her attention. 

Helena stood with her back pressed against the closed door. "Myka, darling," she said sweetly. "What _do_ people do for entertainment around here?"

Myka blinked, slowly coming out of her book. Helena was radiating innocent curiosity, a situation that immediately made Myka cautious. "Univille's not quite as exciting as London, I guess," she said tentatively.

"Yes, exactly!" Helena stalked across the room and sat down uninvited on the end of Myka's bed. "There isn't even a cinema for miles. And Pete and Claudia are playing some awful game on the television downstairs. It gave me a headache." She tucked her legs up under herself and pouted shamelessly at Myka.

Myka tightened her grip on her novel. It was so easy to be swept up into the whirlwind that was Helena. All Myka wanted was a quiet night with a book and a chance to regain her equilibrium. "You do kinda have to make your own fun here sometimes," she said neutrally.

"Mmm. I was hoping you might want to make some fun together." Helena arched her eyebrows and stretched provocatively. 

The brazen statement startled a laugh out of Myka. "Helena," she protested, "I was _reading_." Normally Helena respected the sanctity of Myka's bibliophilia.

Helena smiled, unwilling to be dissuaded this time. She shifted position, emphasizing the curve of her hips; her hair fell just so, artfully draping across the hollow where her shirt gapped at the neck. Myka followed the fabric with her gaze, then closed her eyes determinedly.

"I haven't finished a book in so long," Myka said, weakening despite herself.

"Oh, my dear." Helena bit at her thumbnail, a move that nearly destroyed what was left of Myka's resolve. "Ah, I have it. Why don't you read to me?" She beamed.

Myka rolled her eyes, but grinned back. "Okay," she said shyly, "yeah, if you want." It was practically a compromise – after all, she hadn't completely given in to Helena's demands. And this way she'd still get to enjoy one of her favourite stories. Then she remembered, and blushed. "Um, except, it's one of _your_ books," she mumbled, holding _The Time Machine_ up in front of her face.

"Really? How wonderful!" Helena wiggled around until she was lying next to Myka. "Go on, then." She propped herself up on her elbow, her face almost too close to Myka's, and peeked over her shoulder. 

Myka turned the book away. "Are you sure? I could read something else."

"Nonsense. My words and your lovely voice. Sounds perfect." Helena curled herself into Myka's side and draped one arm over her stomach. She sighed contentedly and Myka smiled, resting a hand on her shoulder. This almost felt normal.

"From the beginning, or...?"

"From wherever you like, darling. It isn't as if I don't know the story."

"Right." Myka squirmed a little further upright against the pillows behind her and cleared her throat. It was kind of intimidating, reading H.G. Wells _to_ H.G. Wells. "Um. 'There was the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine.'"

Helena's hand crept onto Myka's thigh. Her thumb rubbed circles on the soft cotton of Myka's pants. Myka paused and looked down.

Helena smiled, eyes still closed.

Myka shifted a little and turned the page. Helena was sketching increasingly distracting shapes on Myka's leg. The more Myka tried to concentrate on their meaning – could that have been a schematic for the time machine, gone in the moment it took her to understand the dart of Helena's thumb? – the faster they disappeared. "'Everything still seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were' – ah!" She broke off. Helena had moved her hand up Myka's thigh and between her legs, just brushing her cunt.

"Helena," Myka warned. The heat of Helena's hand was enough to set Myka on edge.

"Don't stop, darling," Helena said. "I'm enjoying myself tremendously." 

Myka snorted, oddly comforted by Helena's familiar arrogance, and picked up where she'd left off. "'I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail-stones.'" Helena began to move again. She rested her hand on Myka's inner thigh, drawing patterns placed close enough to make Myka quiver, but remaining just the other side of chaste. Outlines of flowers and grasses, of white buildings with intricate designs, flashed into being on Myka's leg, drawn, she thought, straight from the pictures the text created in her head.

Myka refused to be baited. She read on. Helena matched her determination, finally sliding her hand up to cup between Myka's legs. She drummed her fingers lightly against Myka's cunt and laughed softly at the twitch Myka couldn't quite suppress. Myka swallowed and held herself still, moving only to turn the page.

"'At last I tore my eyes from it for a moment and saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that the sky was lightening with the promise' – ohmy _god_." Helena's fingers pressed firmly against Myka's clit. She twitched helplessly. "'Promise – of the – Sun,'" she sputtered, before giving up and letting herself grind back into Helena's touch. When she stopped speaking, though, Helena stopped moving. Myka swallowed a groan.

"Distracted?" Helena's eyes fluttered open. "That is a classic work of literature, you know, Myka. It deserves your undivided attention." Even only half visible, her grin was pure evil.

"Uh huh. Sure." Myka licked her dry lips. Okay. With Helena's fingers still, Myka thought she could get back into the rhythm of the story. "'What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion?'"

As Myka read, Helena's fingers resumed their former movement. Myka concentrated on keeping her voice steady and her hips still, unwilling to give in so easily. Helena's touch was light enough that Myka was able to all but ignore it for several lines, getting lost in the flow of words.

"'I felt naked in a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air,' um." Myka's brain derailed on _nakedness_. She swallowed, suddenly aware of every stroke of Helena's fingers. Her cunt throbbed and heat bloomed in her belly; suddenly she was on the edge, her entire body attuned to Helena's fingertips. Her voice dropped and wavered despite her best efforts.

Helena paused, just briefly. 

Myka scrambled for her place and kept reading. Her mind was no longer focused on the text; she pronounced the words thoughtlessly, knowing that if she stopped Helena would too. "'One hand on the – the saddle, the other on the – on the lever' – ah! – 'I stood panting heavily in attitude to' – ohhh – 'to mount again.'" Her hips rolled into Helena's touch. She pressed her shoulders back against the headboard for leverage.

She turned the page. Her hands shook. She flattened her palm against the sheets to keep from grabbing at Helena. That, she thought, was probably against the rules of this ridiculous, wonderful battle of wills.

"'My courage. Recovered. I looked. More curiously. And less fearfully. At this world. Of the remote future.'" Myka didn't dare glance down at Helena, though she was aware of Helena watching her. She kept her eyes trained on the trembling page, gasping for breath.

"'Coming through. The bushes. By the. White Sphinx. Were the' – the, the, the – ohhh god." The book fell to her side as her orgasm took her. Her mouth kept moving, nonsense syllables emerging, and she ground against Helena's fingers desperately. The strength of it surprised her; her toes curled and her breath caught and her whole body shook. "Helena, oh, yes, Helena," she gasped, unable to stem the torrent of words. "Don't stop, don't _stop_ , please." 

Helena drew out several shivering aftershocks, gentling as Myka came down until she sagged sideways, curling around Helena, limp.

"You," Myka said eventually, when her breath returned. She pushed her hair off her forehead and laughed softly.

Helena drew her hand down Myka's leg. Myka was too sated even to twitch.

"Well," Helena drawled. "I must say, it's quite the ego boost that my words can have that effect on a woman." Her smug tone filled Myka with an inexplicable rush of tenderness.

Myka took a breath and held it. In one smooth movement, she straddled Helena's hips, hands on her shoulders to pin her to the bed. "My dear H.G.," Myka said, "it's not your ego I intend to stroke."

"Ooh. Mercy." Helena stretched under Myka, knocking the book to the floor. Myka ignored it. It could wait.

 

*

**Rimininny!**

If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.  
You're not the best of what's been thought or said,  
Not yet. But youth, with genius, is enough. 

_Ménage à trois_ is greatness, not rebuff,  
If you gain art from what art's represented.  
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.

I want you, and I want a paragraph  
of lengthy James; he does go on. My love,  
Can you? I shouldn't praise his length? Enough

of him? The body of work's living proof  
We're all rare forms living... in the dead.  
If you can't _A Little Tour in France_ me while I read, fuck off. 

I signal lusts by _title_ , not handkerchief,  
Since I'm the sex of all that I have read;  
Sometimes I write this sex. Kiss me enough

And well enough, that I may bear the snub  
That reading's not a _sexual preference_.  
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off,  
Or rave how _I'm_ a work of art enough.

—S.X. Rosenstock, _The Paris Review_ , 1996


End file.
